Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday offered a rare apology to Qatar for this month's air strike on Doha.
In a three-way phone call with US President Donald Trump and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman, Mr Netanyahu expressed “deep regret” for the attack, which killed five Hamas members and a Qatari security officer, according to the White House.
The Prime Minister also promised that Israel would refrain from launching such an attack again, a U-turn from his earlier threats to continue striking Hamas leaders in Doha.
The apology was the first made by Mr Netanyahu to a fellow world leader in more than a decade.
In 2013, former US president Barack Obama persuaded the Prime Minister to apologise to Ankara after nine people were killed during an Israeli raid on a Turkish aid ship bound for Gaza three years prior.
In May 2010, Israeli soldiers attempted to repel an aid flotilla carrying hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists. The convoy, known as the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, had set out from Istanbul in an attempt to break Israel's naval blockade of the enclave.
Nine people were killed when Israeli marines boarded Mavi Marmara, a Turkish aid ship. Activists said troops opened fire as soon as they boarded the vessel, which was in international waters at the time. The deadly attack sparked global outrage and severely strained relations between Turkey and Israel.
Like his apology to Qatar this week, Mr Netanyahu's expression of remorse to Turkey was made under US pressure during a visit to Israel by Mr Obama.
White House officials said at the time that Mr Netanyahu had called Turkey's then prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan from Israel's Ben Gurion Airport before Mr Obama departed for Jordan.
The Israeli leader “apologised to the Turkish people for any errors that could have led to the loss of life” in the 2010 raid. Mr Erdogan accepted the apology “in the name of the Turkish people”, his office said at the time.
Monday's events represent a repeat of history in more ways than one: a US President pressuring Mr Netanyahu into a rare apology, and an aid flotilla facing resistance while attempting to challenge Israel's blockade of Gaza.
Since the apology to Ankara, Israel has launched at least three wars in Gaza, one in Lebanon and one in Iran, and carried out air strikes on Yemen, Syria and Doha.
A UN-backed commission has even accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, but Mr Netanyahu doubled down during his address at the UN General Assembly on Friday, with no signs of remorse or an apology.
